Occasionally
by Komillia
Summary: A series of YzakxShiho drabbles. [Drabble 4: Reduced to a memory?]
1. Lacus

**Occasionally**

As the summary says, this is a series of Yzak/Shiho drabbles. To readers of **_Partially Awake_**, I'm still working on the next chapter so writing these drabbles will have little to no effect on me working on the story. Just more Yzak/Shiho fics to the people. :)

**Title:** Lacus  
**Genre:** Fluff  
**Word count: **478  
**Summary: **Yzak now knew the true meaning of humiliation.  
**Notes:** Written for a drabble challenge but unfortunately I couldn't enter because I went over the word limit.

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"Lacus Clyne?"

Yzak stopped right in his tracks and could practically feel all the color disappearing from his face. He turned around to face her slowly, very slowly. It was impossible, unbelievable, she couldn't have...

Oh yes, she could.

Shiho stood there, an expression of confusion and amusement on her face and a Lacus Clyne CD in her hand.

Yzak swallowed. He should have never let his things out sight long enough for her to unpack them before he did. Agreeing to him and Shiho moving in together was yet another thing he should not have let happened. In fact, because of the current event he was not only starting to regret him and Shiho becoming a couple, but also regretting the fact that he had been born and lived long enough to experience this day and moment.

"You have a Lacus Clyne CD?" she asked almost in disbelief.

Without waiting for an answer she opened the disc case and took out the CD.

"There are a lot of scratches so it's been played a lot," she said, holding it up and studying it carefully.

"It was already like that when I bought it!" Yzak retorted defensively, attempting to save the little that was left of his dignity.

"So you admit that you bought it?"

Yzak now knew the true meaning of humiliation.

Color made a full-blown comeback to his face. Avoiding Shiho's eyes and very amused grin he stepped over the piles of unpacked boxes and the general disarray of their apartment until he found the one box he was looking for. It was marked "CDs and DVDs", written in Shiho's handwriting. He tore the box open.

"W..what are you doing?" Shiho stuttered, all signs of being amused clearly gone.

"Looking through your stuff to see what kind of lame music you have," Yzak muttered and searched the box frantically.

"No, don't do that!" Shiho called out, crossing the distance between them. She came up to him from behind and grabbed his shoulders in an attempt to drag him away from the box. "Yzak, I'll do whatever you want, just don't..."

Her words stopped as Yzak's entire body suddenly tensed. Neither of them said anything as he slowly pulled out a disc case. Eyes wide as if he could not believe what he was seeing, it took a few seconds for him to react to his finding and the only thing that he could do was to whisper two words.

"Lacus... Clyne?"

He looked over his shoulder and at her for some sort of confirmation. But he only saw her flushed face for a moment before she buried it in the nape of his neck, clearly embarrassed by the whole ordeal. Yzak opened the disc case and took a closer look at the CD.

Like his copy, hers had been played often, with scratches and all.


	2. Deserted

**Occasionally**

Although this one is more of a one shot, I decided to put it here anyway. I hope you guys like it. :)**  
**

**Title:** Deserted  
**Genre:** More fluff :D  
**Word count: **1362  
**Summary: "**I hate you, you're deserting me."  
**Notes: **Written in response to a one shot challenge on the seedfictest community on Livejournal. I hope you'll enjoy it and don't hesitate to leave a review and let me know what you think!

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"You're still leaving?"

"Yup."

"You can't be serious."

"On the contrary, I'm very serious."

"..."

Shiho zipped her duffle bag closed and looked up just in time to see Yzak glaring rather furiously at her. It was the kind of glare that would have scared the life out of her back when she was fresh out of the academy but as years passed she had more or less gotten used to Yzak glaring at someone at least once a day. It was a part of what Yzak was, his day wouldn't be complete without at least attempting to make someone bow down to him in fear of his anger.

His constant glaring at her, however, was not effective today.

"It's not working, so stop pretending to be mad at me," she said casually and stood up to face him.

Upon hearing her words Yzak's face turned completely red.

"Who says I'm pretending?" he hissed with clenched fists and looking like steam would come out from his ears any moment. "And that's not the point, the point is that you're leaving!"

He pointed accusingly at Shiho with a shaking finger. In return Shiho just raised an eyebrow slightly and looked at him strangely.

"You're overreacting," she told him.

"I am not!" Yzak snapped. "You're going to just leave me here to take of everything, how am I _not_ overreacting!"

"I don't know, maybe you could say it's okay and try like any other normal person would?" Shiho retorted sarcastically, her patience with Yzak starting to run out. "Just for once you could try adapting to _me_ and _my _wishes!"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean!"

Shiho rolled her eyes.

"God knows you're not the easiest person to live with, Yzak! You're too high strung for your own good and I'm surprised your head hasn't blown off yet with the way you keep getting so angry over everything!"

"Where do you come off telling me that I'm not easy!" Yzak yelled back. "I'm not the one who's going away, you are!"

"And how many times have you gone away and left me all by myself?" Shiho asked hotly, crossing her arms. "Did you see me throwing a big tantrum like you are?"

Yzak stared at her blankly, suddenly at a complete loss for words. The irritation in Shiho's face slowly disappeared and instead her lips curved up in a smug smile. However, this in turn only infuriated Yzak more and the thought of her outsmarting him in the verbal battle was not exactly appealing.

"That was... different!" he hissed, reaching out and grabbing her arms almost aggressively. "It's not even comparable to this!"

"Oh, really? What the big difference then?"

"It's..." Yzak started, expecting the words to roll of his tongue but when none came he stood there completely frozen.

Frantically searching his mind for a reasonable rebuttal, the smugness that Shiho displayed was starting to become more and more aggravating. His hold on her arms tightened and when her smile did not disappear he was fully convinced that she was just standing there and enjoying him trying to dig himself out of this hole.

The smile on her lips was becoming very irritating.

For a moment, all that he could think about was that he had to get that smile off her lips.

Leaning forwards, he captured her mouth in a kiss. He felt her shudder as her lips opened up for him and did not miss the rush of warmth he felt somewhere between his heart and stomach. His right hand moved from her arm to the small of her back, pressing her closer to him as he deepened the kiss.

Forever always felt like a wonderful thing when he was with her.

But unfortunately they did not have forever, as proved by the sound of a loud car honk interrupted their moment. Yzak groaned in frustration as they pulled away from each other and looking at Shiho he saw that she was looking less than happy as well.

The honking had come from a cab was outside with a driver waiting to take her to the shuttle port. From there she would go to September Three and take part of that damn conference that would keep her away from him an entire week. Without a word she grabbed her duffle bag and headed towards the front door and he followed her outside silently.

As the cab driver put her bag in the car trunk, Yzak seized his chance and suddenly pulled Shiho into an embrace. His arms closed around her, preventing her from getting away. Not that he needed to, she relaxed into his arms and soon he felt her head rest comfortably against his shoulder. The way they stood, as close as they could get, was the way Yzak could stand forever and not mind. He felt right when he held her in his arms.

"I hate you, you're deserting me," he whispered in her hair.

Despite the harshness of his words, the tone of his voice was completely different and said so much more. Shiho knew this and smiled to herself.

"You'll be fine. Don't forget to talk a lot, she loves hearing your voice."

He mumbled a yes and with that she drew away from his embrace. But there was a smile on her lips and she touched his face affectionately before turning around and entering the cab. His hands automatically helped her close the car door and in the front seat the driver started the car, happy to finally be on his way. Yzak's eyes met Shiho's.

One shared look between the two of them was enough as a goodbye and said more than any words could.

The cab drove away and Yzak followed it with his eyes until the cab turned around a corner and disappeared out of sight. Only then did Yzak turn around and walk back into the house. He walked on with heavy footsteps and felt like just managing to get through the hallway was a great, unrivalled achievement. But somehow, as he reached the stairs the sense of heaviness started to fade away. By the time he was up on the second floor and his hand one of the doors he actually felt a bit of lightness in his heart.

Carefully pushing the door open so that it would not creak, Yzak quietly snuck into the dark room that nine months ago had been empty. But there, in the far right corner of the bright, small room, he found his light in the dark.

A pair of large, blue eyes peered up at him.

"You're awake already, Yelena?"

Reaching out, Yzak turned on the nearest lamp, spreading soft light over the room. Then he bent down and carefully picked up his daughter from the crib. She wasn't that heavy, but she was seemed so tiny, soft and frail in his arms that sometimes Yzak would become deathly afraid that he would accidentally hurt her whenever he was around. But Shiho was gone for a week now and it was up to him to take care of Yelena on his own, no matter how scary that thought was.

Still carrying her, he walked over to the other side of the room and stood before the bookshelf there. He scanned the titles, intending to find something to read to her.

"Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White... boring, boring, boring," Yzak murmured and then looked at Yelena. "We don't want to read about that girly stuff, do we? How about we pick something from daddy's bookshelf? I haven't started on _Uses of fusion deuterium reactors_ yet, how about that one?"

Yzak swore that he saw his nine month old, baby daughter raising her eyebrow a little and give him a strange look.

"Sometimes I swear you take after your mother too much," he sighed and resumed his attempt to find a children's book.


	3. Interest

**Occasionally**

Another month, another drabble. It's one that's been sitting around on my computer for a while, waiting to be transformed into something longer but seeing as I've been pretty busy with other things I decided to post it here as a drabble instead. :)

**Title:** Interest  
**Genre:** Fluff (what else?) and general  
**Word count: **575  
**Summary: **Just before the door shut he looked up, caught a glimpse of her face and instantly knew that something about her was different.  
**Notes: **Written for what was supposed to be the beginning of a longer Yzak/Shiho story but that one got scrapped when I started to work on _**Partially Awake** _instead.

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The first time he saw her was when she came back to hand over a report. It was not the first time he laid his eyes on her nor was it the first time they met. He had known her for years and grown used to her presence. Coincidentally, it was not a day like any other when she would stay behind in his office and help out with the paperwork for no reason. It was the one unique day when she left her own report on his desk and turned around to leave. Perhaps that was why he remembered that particular day, that particular moment, as the first time when he looked up and really saw _her_ for the first time.

"Where are you going?" he asked, his voice sounding cranky but truth to be told he was merely curious.

"To the mess hall," she answered, stopping before she reached the door. "A couple of the guys are having a celebration."

Yzak opened his mouth to protest that unauthorized celebrations in the mess hall were strictly prohibited but before he could she continued as if she knew what he was thinking.

"Dearka said that he had talked to you about it?"

It dawned on him that Dearka had indeed mentioned something about a small birthday party and that between shouting at a few of the lower ranked officers and attempting to finish the neverending pile of paperwork Yzak had given his approval.

"Well, then... dismissed."

He resumed trying to read through the long summary of the latest Council meeting and missed her salute. As he heard the door slide open he knew that she was leaving and to his own surprise he felt a strange annoyance. Just before the door shut he looked up, caught a glimpse of her face and instantly knew that something about her was different.

She was wearing lipgloss.

Later that night Yzak lay awake in his bed, tossing and turning as he desperately tried to drift into sleep. Counting sheeps did not help as usual, nor did attempting to clear his mind from all thoughts. Small beads of sweat were starting to form along his spine, the temperature in his quarters was too high. He got up on his feet and walked over to the control panel, where he adjusted the temperature. After that he lay in his bed once again with his eyes shut, determined to fall asleep.

He would try thinking about something this time. Perhaps that would help.

The Voltaire would be docking in fifteen hours.

He was scheduled to meet with the council six hours later.

Shiho had been wearing lipgloss.

As soon as the train of thought crossed his mind he opened his eyes in shock and unconsciously he clutched the corner of his pillow. At first he asked himself why he even thought about it, then all his efforts went into vanquishing the thought rather than trying to fall asleep. But his own mind was betraying him, when he closed his eyes he kept remembering the way she had looked before the door to his office had shut. He remembered how her lips suddenly looked full and soft because of the lipgloss. The lipgloss was probably transparent because her lips still looked very natural.

Natural, full, soft...

Yzak felt his cheek redden and even though he was alone and it was dark, he felt the need to draw his covers closer to him.


	4. Memoria

**Occasionally**

**Title:** Memoria  
**Genre:** Drama/Romance  
**Word count: **2099  
**Summary: **"Reduced to just a memory?"  
**Notes:** Written for a challenge a while ago.

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Glass shattered against the wall. The tiny pieces rained down all over the floor and...

"Yzak, calm down!"

Ignoring the voice of his best friend, Yzak left the box he had just opened and turned to another. He tore the tape off and ripped the box open.

"Are you listening to me?" Dearka asked. Glass cracked beneath his shoes as he stepped forward and put his hand on Yzak's shoulder. "What are you looking for?"

The only response he got was Yzak shrugging his hand off and more frantic digging through the box. Dearka sighed as he stepped back. Yzak did not even hear him.

_The first morning after was not natural, not awkward. It was hardly a morning after, they had both failed to fall asleep and when the sun rose it was yet another silent moment passing._

"…_hey."_

_"Hey."_

_He pulled up the covers, they had slid off them a little during the night. She snuggled closer, not that they weren't close enough to begin with._

"_You know what I was thinking?" she said, eyes half closed and voice laced with want of sleep._

_He shook his head. At some point it occurred to him that she might say that it was best for her to leave, or that they should just pretend that none of this ever happened. The thought of being reduced to just a memory would have sent a shiver through his body if he had not been so determined to not show his fear._

_But rather than leaving she just crawled on top of him, resting her head against his chest._

"_I was thinking that we should order pizza, watch bad TV in bed and stay here all day."_

_His heart took an extra skip and he hoped that she wouldn't notice._

"_What makes you think that I don't have work that I'd rather do?" he spoke defensively._

_It was so typical of him to say something like that and he often did it without questioning why. But the moment the words came out of his mouth the thought of her leaving somehow made him feel fear again. _

_And he could not understand why._

_Neither could he understand that despite what he had just said, she still did not move._

_Instead she just looked up to meet his gaze and did so with a smug look on her face._

_"If I recall it correctly… last night you were the one who wanted to cuddle."_

Another piece of glass shattered as it hit the floor. He didn't even see what it was. The moment he had picked it up from the box and known that it was the wrong box he had been digging through a sense of fury had hit him which could only be relieved by throwing the object away from him. The relief did not last long and he moved on to the next box.

His hands had scrape marks all over them from tearing up so many boxes.

"_What excuse should I make up today?"_

_He looked up upon hearing her voice. He was still lying in bed, while she had just gotten out of the shower and had taken the liberty to borrow his bath robe._

"_Last week it was me running out of soap and finding a bottle of shower gel that an old boyfriend had left behind," she went on and sat down on the bed while drying her long hair with a towel. "The week before that it was me going out and shopping for a cologne for a guy friend's birthday. The week before that was just another bizarre excuse to cover up why I smell of masculine shower gel when I turn up for work."_

"_You still haven't used the exploring your masculine side excuse we came up with," he said absent mindedly. His hand found the opening of the bathrobe and slipped inside to touch her thigh._

_She laughed dryly._

_He smiled._

"_Thanks but no thanks," she answered. "I'm not willing to sacrifice that much to keep our secret. I'm bringing my own shower gel next time."_

_She kissed him lightly on his lips and then stood up._

"_The second drawer," he blurted out suddenly._

_For some reason he felt oddly nervous and bit his lip even when all she did was to look at him over her shoulder._

"_What?"_

"_The second drawer," he repeated, pointing quickly at the dresser in the corner. "I cleaned it out."_

…for you.

"If you would just tell me what you're looking for I could help you out!" Dearka nearly shouted, growing increasingly impatient with his friend. "Yzak!"

In an attempt to stop his crazed behavior, Dearka pushed Yzak away from the box with as much force as he could muster. Yzak fell backwards, landing on his back but wasting no time in getting back up again and opening the next box.

"It has to be here…"

"_Keys?"_

_The ventilation system seemed awfully loud when the room was enveloped in silence. Not ten minutes had passed since the Voltaire had launched into space and here he was already, dangling a pair of keys in front of her face while she stared wide eyed at him._

"_I got tired of all the running around every night," he explained. "Use these from now on."_

_Rather than taking them as she should have, she slapped his hand away and sent the keys flying across the room. Before he had the chance to question what she was doing, she was pushing him rather violently against the wall._

"_Commander, you may be my superior at work but during my spare time I prefer to not be bossed around by you! If you think that you can just hand me a set of keys and I'll come running to you whenever you feel like it, you're dead wrong!"_

"_MAJOR!"_

_Him shouting back at her and not calling her by her name seemed to make her step back. It was almost as if she wanted to salute._

"_The keys aren't for… that," he muttered. "I don't want you to come running… I want you to stay."_

_If possible, her eyes widened even more._

_Then, slowly yet gladly, a nod._

"_O-okay."_

_He smirked but had they been in the privacy of his home, their home, he would have dared to touch her without the fear of being noticed._

"_Good," he said on his way out. "Because I already called some people and told them to pack all your stuff and move them to my place."_

_There was a long pause. _

"What has to be here?"

Tired of constantly asking questions and not receiving an answer, Dearka sat down and rested his head against his hands. Yzak dug into one box after another, leaving a trail of everything from clothes to CDs behind him. It was as if he was possessed by something or, worse, something inside him had driven him to this.

"I have to find it," Yzak just murmured. "I have to!"

He finished rummaging through yet another box and pushed it aside. Standing up, he let his eyes wander all over the room. It was a complete mess. Everything he had found was just lying in piles here and there and all the boxes were open in a disarray.

Save for one.

"Yzak, what's going on here?" Dearka asked.

_He said nothing and just stood there with his arms crossed and eyes fixed at the monitor. While everyone around him began talking, speculating, doubting, he remained strangely calm. Still, it did not mean that he was not asking himself the same questions that everyone else were. Who was the real Lacus Clyne? It had to be the one with Cagalli, but then what was up with the other one?_

"_Commander."_

_She was still standing next to him as she had during the broadcast._

"_Do you know what's going on?"_

"_Whatever it is it's not good," he muttered and started to leave the mess hall. All those confused soldiers were too much and eventually everyone would turn to him to know what was happening. He didn't want to deal with them or their questions._

_After all, he was not sure that he had any answers for them._

It was there it was, in the bottom of the very last box.

A small leather book.

He stared at it blankly for a few seconds and then opened it.

"_DEARKA!"_

_Gripping the controls tightly, he steered his ZAKU with full speed and swooped in just in time to take out the unit before another set of missiles could be launch. Parts of the unit exploded and even in the safety of the cockpit he could feel the tremors._

_But once the explosion was over, it was all done. He looked up at one of the smaller monitors and saw Dearka's helmet covered face smile at him while giving him a thumbs up. In return he just nodded, a silent "You're welcome" that Dearka was very familiar with by now._

_A quiet "beep" brought his gaze downwards and he looked down at the radar to see that a new object had appeared. He growled as he took notice of the coordinates and the direction the object was flying from. Another ZAFT unit. But no matter, the most important thing was protecting the Eternal. The unit would have to face him first and he was in no mood to play nice today._

_He watched the object on the radar. It was coming closer._

_His thumb automatically placed itself on the firing control._

"_Commander!"_

_He froze._

_On the upper left corner of his monitor, a small window suddenly popped up._

"_Commander, can you hear me?"_

"_M-major Hahnenfuss…" he whispered, almost to himself, upon seeing her face. His hand released the control._

"_Commander, why are you fighting against our own units! What are you doing!"_

"_I should be asking you that!" he shouted back, recovering from the shock of seeing her. "I gave orders that the ship wouldn't enter battle and that goes for everything and everyone who's on it!"_

"It's a photo album," Dearka said, moving and sitting next to Yzak.

The latter had still not said anything and just sat there in daze. Occassionally he would flip the pages of the photo album and be met by smiles and captions of awkward or funny moments. He had seen a picture of the first team that had been assigned to him. She had been one of them and in the pictures she was always looking at the camera fearlessly.

In the very end was a series of pictures of the two of them together, taken one sunny day when she had forced him to go into a photo booth with her.

"Is that all she is now?" Yzak spoke dully.

"_Go back to the Voltaire!"_

"_Not without you!"_

"_I'm not joking, this is an order…"_

"_Yzak!"_

_He nearly froze again when she actually called him by his name. Rather than continuing shouting orders at her, he watched her face in the small section of his monitor and saw the sincerity in her eyes._

"_All this time, I've been by your side…" Her voice was becoming shaky. "Don't ask me to leave you now. I don't know what you are doing defending the Eternal and fighting ZAFT, but I'm telling you now that you can't make me leave now. I don't care what you say, I-"_

_Noise._

_No signal._

_He growled angrily and hit a few buttons aggressively. Stupid communications link had to choose now of all times to get screwed up._

"A pretty picture? Reduced to just a memory?"

Dearka sighed and looked away. He ran his fingers through his hair and accidentally caught sight of the clock on the wall. Eleven fifteen. They had to go soon, or else they'd be late.

"_Shiho!"_

_No answer._

_He switched to another channel, perhaps that would work._

"_Shiho!"_

_No answer._

_It was typical. With the battle going on, all the missiles, beams and ammunition being fired it was not strange that the communication links would be affected by it. _

_He looked down at the radar._

_There was nothing there._

"…_Shiho?"_

The clock struck eleven twenty. Dearka stood up and practically pulled Yzak up on his feet. He handed Yzak a black blazer, which Yzak accepted without a word and quietly slipping it on. Though he tried, Dearka could not think of a single comforting thing to say. The words would not come out and he was not even sure that the right words existed. Instead, he just put his hand on Yzak's shoulder and led him out of the apartment.

"It's time," he said, picking up the bouquet of white roses on his way out.


End file.
